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MOSCOW, January 23. /TASS/. Potential for protest acts in Russia is low now, said pollsters at the All-Russia Center for Studies of Public Opinion (VTSIOM). Demonstrations have been assessed as destabilizing factors rather than instruments to solve problems, they said.

Nearly eight out of 10 people polled across the country (77%) rejected the idea of taking to the streets with protest slogans. The attitude of the population to rallies has become even more negative now than three years ago. Nearly a quarter of respondents (22%) polled in 2012 said rallies were fraught with the collapse of society; in the beginning of this year the number of the "anti-protest" population went up to 30%. Most of the respondents in the "anti-protest" category are from Moscow and St.Petersburg, Russia's capital and the nation's second biggest city.

Support for pickets, marches and rallies as "normal, democratic" means of solving problems fell from 36% in 2012 (36%) to around a quarter (23%) in the latest poll.

Nearly seven out of 10 respondents interviewed (66%) on 45 territories of the Russian Federation said protest action in their local communities was unlikely.

The VTSIOM poll was conducted on January 10-11 to interview 1,600 respondents. A statistical margin error was no more than 3.5%.